Controlled commodity transactions remain sales when mutual assent survives statutory regulation and no compulsory acquisition occurs.

Transactions in controlled commodities remain sales for sales tax purposes where statutory control orders restrict price, parties, quantity, or delivery but do not wholly exclude mutual assent. The Supreme Court distinguished regulated contractual dealings from compulsory acquisition and held that a dealer's voluntary participation in the controlled trade, together with express or implied agreement between the parties, preserves the consensual character of the transfer. Only where the obligation to transfer property is imposed directly without real agreement does the transaction fall outside the legal concept of sale. The transactions were therefore treated as sales and liable to sales tax or purchase tax against the assessee.

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Issues: Whether transactions in controlled commodities effected under statutory control orders, where the seller and purchaser are bound by the regulatory scheme and the price and parties are prescribed or restricted, nevertheless amount to sales exigible to sales tax or purchase tax.

Analysis: The controlling question was whether statutory regulation so excluded consent that the transactions ceased to be sales in law. The Court held that a mere restriction on the field of choice does not destroy the consensual character of the transaction. Where the dealer voluntarily enters the regulated trade and the allottee or procuring party seeks the commodity under the statutory permit or allotment, conduct of the parties may disclose offer and acceptance by implication. The control orders limited price, parties, quantity, and mode of delivery, but they did not wholly eliminate mutual assent. The Court distinguished cases of true compulsory acquisition, where the obligation to transfer property is imposed directly without any real agreement, and held that the present transactions belonged to the class of regulated contractual dealings rather than compulsory taking.

Conclusion: The transactions were sales within the meaning of the relevant sales tax statutes and were liable to sales tax or purchase tax, as the case may be, against the assessee.

Ratio Decidendi: A transaction governed by statutory control orders remains a sale if mutual assent is not wholly excluded and the parties, though bound by regulatory conditions, enter into the transfer by an express or implied agreement; only transactions amounting in substance to compulsory acquisition fall outside the legal concept of sale.

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